Anthem Fails To Meet EA's Expectations, But Company Is Committed To Improving It

BioWare’s new IP Anthem launched in February and, despite a strong sales start in the United States, it failed to meet publisher Electronic Arts’ expectations.

As part of EA’s latest earnings report, EA CEO Andrew Wilson said, “The launch of Anthem did not meet our expectations.” Back in February, just ahead of the game’s release, EA CFO Blake Jorgensen said the publisher expected the game to sell between 5-6 million units by the end of March. He said even more money was expected to come in from sales of Anthem’s microtransaction opportunities.

Today, EA did not provide any specifics about how many units Anthem has sold. Whatever the case, Anthem was not the hit EA and BioWare would have wanted. Despite that, Wilson said it remains “committed” to supporting Anthem’s ongoing live service features over the “long term.”

Wilson said BioWare is aware of the feedback from Anthem players that they want “more depth and variety in the mission modes of the game.”

“The team is now very focused on continued improvements to the game, and will then bring more content updates and in-game events that will enhance and expand the Anthem experience,” he said. “We believe in the team at BioWare, and we also believe in what they set out to achieve with this game–building a new IP and melding genres to reach a new audience.”

Those who are playing Anthem are playing a lot. Together, players have logged more than 150 million hours in the game since launch, Wilson said.

Just last week, Anthem developers said they remain “100 percent committed” to Anthem following the delay of numerous anticipated features. One part of BioWare’s commitment to improving Anthem is through the launch of a new Player Feedback Environment (PFE) server for Anthem’s PC version.

Anthem’s release in February marked the second best first-month sales for any BioWare game in history in the United States, only behind Mass Effect 3. On the earnings call, Jorgensen said Anthem is the “most digital game we have ever launched” in regards to sales. Overall, 49 percent of EA full-game sales across PS4, Xbox One, and PC were digital.